


The Purloined Letters

by neifile7



Series: Lockpickers [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Asexual character(s), BDSM, Character Death, Clothing Porn, Coat porn, Crossdressing, Cultural Appropriation, D/s Relationships, Dirty Talk, Episode: s02e01 A Scandal in Belgravia, Episode: s02e03 The Reichenbach Fall, F/F, F/M, Female Ejaculation, Femslash, Humiliation, Irene-centric, Masturbation, Original Character Death(s), Post-The Reichenbach Fall, Psychodrama, References to Child Abuse, Salon kink, Sherlock's Coat, Spanking, UST abounds, Unsafe insane and dubiously consensual, like woah
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-22
Updated: 2013-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-02 08:02:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1054399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neifile7/pseuds/neifile7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: “The art of disguise is knowing how to hide in plain sight.” Irene has had many disguises — some of them mirrors, but all of them self-portraits.</p><p> An Irene-centric retelling of ASiB and its aftermath, through Reichenbach and after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: My deepest thanks to 4seiji and 51stCenturyFox for marvelous beta work, and to provocatrixxx for her nuanced Britpick. Whatever slippages of diction remain in the text are, I hope, the ones I intended to put there. My thanks also to the Antidiogenes Club for welcoming the fandom newcomer and cheering this along, one sentence at a time.
> 
> Disclaimer: My Irene Adler should in no way be taken as a poster child for safe, sane, and consensual BDSM or for ethical professional practice. **Trigger warning for dubious consent, poor negotiation of boundaries, and manipulative relationships.** In other words, BBC Sherlock canon as usual.

 

From the manner of gathering up a trick he judges whether the person taking it can make another in the suit. He recognizes what is played through feint, by the air with which it is thrown upon the table.

– Edgar Allan Poe,  _The Murders in the Rue Morgue_

**Prologue**

**In which Irene receives a visitor with a whiff of chlorine about him.**

Head shot.

Neck shot: the low bloom of a love-bite dead center.

“What a queen you would make,” Irene murmurs, pressing her silenced shutter. Arm shot: hands expertly bound together against the headboard in loops of bright scarlet silk, ring visible.

"That’s the problem, isn’t it?” she continues softly, circling the bed. Abdomen, peppered with fresh violet weals. “They all think you’re Snow White. They’ve no idea how wicked, how deliciously depraved you are. How you’ll stop at nothing to be the fairest in the land.” A truly filthy shot from below the knees, catching the glisten between the thighs and the hungry agony on the blindfolded face.

The figure on the bed whines a little, a delectably urgent noise beneath the gag; Irene leans in, pressing the tip of the flogger against the collarbone. “But I know better, don’t I?” she whispers against one cheek. She turns her head so that both faces are in frame, and presses the shutter again.

“I know,” she repeats, brushing the flogger down, down, its tails skating over sternum and belly, coming to rest just above the pubis. Such desperate noises, now. “You’ve no secrets from me, Your Highness. I can read it in every twitch of your muscles and every moan. You’d like to come one more time, wouldn’t you?” She gives a few swishing flicks just above the clit. “You’d like me to tease your thighs like this until you’re on edge again, and then push in _hard._   You’d like me to tug the clamps off your nipples while I do it, and then bite them until you’re creaming the sheet beneath you.” She angles for another full-torso shot, showcasing said clamps and the flushed peaks within them.

Abruptly, the phone pulses twice in her hand.

Code orange, in their long-arranged signal. _Possible danger; your attention needed ASAP._  No time to secure the client personally, then. Thank goodness, not one long pulse, not _red_ , _abandon ship, out the dressing-room window and fall back to rendezvous._

The timing’s awful, but at least Irene has reached what she calls the Scheherazade phase of the session: the one where she sets the hooks that will draw her fish back again and again.

“But that’s a reward you have to earn, your Highness,” she says, at the honeyed pitch she saves for precisely this moment. “Next time, maybe, if you’re biddable, I’ll put the bracelets on you. The diadem and the chain, sharp little points biting into your wrists and forehead and breasts, marring all that smooth creamy skin.” She twists one clamped nipple, hard. “Jewels leave such distinctive marks, don’t you find? You’ll look the perfect queen of pain when I’m done with you. _This_ time,” and she deftly tugs the ankle restraints open, “you can rub yourself off on the sheets while you picture it. How very, very filthy you’ll look and feel. If you can turn over, that is. Do it for me, your Highness.”

When she slips out the door, Kate is pressed up to the other side. “He’s here,” she whispers without preamble.

Irene shakes her whip arm, flexing her cramping fingers, and nods once. “Go in there, quietly, but give her two minutes while she finishes. Then routine aftercare, but draw it out. She’ll need the salve for her wrists and ankles, and plenty of water.  Fix her makeup for her; you’ll probably want the number two foundation and the blue Hermès scarf. Just _keep her here_ until I get rid of him.”

Kate nods, and Irene passes swiftly into her dressing room, takes stock in the mirror. A few deep breaths for the lingering flush; it won’t do to arrive pink with exertion. And while Irene has no shame about receiving in her working gear or nothing at all, she is always aware, with _him_ , of needing every edge of advantage. After a moment’s thought, she pulls the green peacock kimono over her lace peignoir, leaving the front open. It trails behind her as she descends the stairs to her sitting room, an entrance far more queenly than anything her pupil upstairs could manage.

He’s reclining in the wingback chair, a cut-glass tumbler of her best whisky dangling carelessly from his fingers. He wears — no, _inhabits_ — one of his perfect suits, its lines barely disturbed by the hour and whatever madness he’s dabbled in tonight. He smiles at her with eyes as black and bleak as a winter Arctic night.

She nods at him, a regal dip of the neck. “Mr. Moriarty,” she says. “I hardly expected to see you so soon. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Miss Adler,” he replies, eyes raking her and lips quirking. “How is your illustrious client tonight?” He tips his glass at her, an insolent toast, and takes a sip.

“Satisfied, of course,” she says, crossing to the drinks cabinet, catching an incongruous whiff of — chlorine? — as she passes him. She pours herself water with steady hands. “I have earned my night’s rest, among other things, and it’s a bit late for a social call. So perhaps you could tell me why you thought it necessary to stop by.”

“I told you already,” Moriarty says. “And really, Miss Adler; your own sense of timing could use a little work. You interrupted a rather _riveting_ evening’s entertainment. The least you can do is prove that you weren’t lying.”

“Hot date, was it? My apologies.”

“Oh, you have no idea. Explosive, in fact.”

Since that’s quite possibly the literal truth, Irene holds her tongue. Leaning nonchalantly against the drinks cabinet, not without a well-concealed effort, she pulls out the phone and taps in her code _t-a-k-e,_ one-handed behind her back. She scans her menu, selects the relevant photoand locks the screen before passing it to him.

Moriarty studies it for a long minute, brow furrowing a bit before it clears, and then hands it back to her. There’s an alien spark in the dead depths of his eyes. “Do you know what it means?” she asks him. “It’s a code of some sort, obviously.”

“Mmm. No. But I know the _kind_ of thing that it is. And far more important, I know who will care. Who will want to stop anybody from finding out.” He settles slowly back in the chair and looks up at her. “Tell me, Irene. Have you ever heard of Sherlock Holmes?”

“It sounds like a posh line of reproduction furniture. Victorian knockoffs and Regency tat,” Irene says. “No. Should I have?”

“You most definitely should. He has a website you’ll find amusing. Also look up one John Watson, who writes a fawning blog about him. You won’t find much on Google Images yet, but it’s worth keeping an eye out.” Moriarty takes a longish pull of his whisky. His face is coming alive in the way she only sees when she’s pulled off some rather spectacular coup and has called him in to share the spoils. Her nape prickles. “He calls himself a consulting detective. What he really is, though, is a very clever solver of puzzles. And a very vain, very self-confident meddler.”

“Inconvenienced you, has he?” Irene says.

“Oh, a bit. Not nearly as much as he’s diverted me, though; he’s quite, _quite_ enjoyable to play with. Rather sexy when he’s being all cleverboots,” he adds, a little too casually, and Irene makes a mental note that Moriarty, who has yet to look at her with the remotest shred of interest, seems to have a bit of a crush. “But all that is rather beside the point,” he goes on. “The point being that he has a very ruthless, very powerful brother, who occasionally asks him to solve little problems. And this brother has access to unlimited money and unlimited protection and it is he, my dear Irene, who will make you rich and make you safe to enjoy it.”

“I see. Is it another Mata Hari scenario you have in mind? Hardly a challenge anymore, _really_ too predictable. And my rules for threesomes don’t stretch to incest.”

“No seduction necessary, I think, although you’re welcome to try.” Moriarty swirls his glass. “Frankly, I don’t think that Mycroft Holmes has much to do with women, and icebergs are positively _cuddly_ in comparison. Sherlock, on the other hand, is rather naïve in some ways. Pretends to be all brain and no feelings, but he has his moments. Probably a virgin. You could do something with that.”

“Darling, it’s never a question of what I _could_ do. It’s always what I’ll _enjoy_ doing, and what’s _worth_ my effort,” Irene says. “Inexperienced men are tedious.”

“But clever men are not.” Moriarty smiles, slow, lazy, and there’s a near-sexual heat in his eyes now, also a first. “Wait till you see him. Wait till you match wits with him. It will be something new in your little book of pleasures, I promise.”

He drains his glass and stands.

“Look him up,” he says. “Then we’ll talk ways and means. It’s your show, Irene darling, although I’ll want in on that little code message and whatever it can do. And while you’re welcome to give Sherlock a few of your custom welts and bruises, I’ll thank you to return him intact.  I have plans for him.”

Irene laughs. “I don’t plan on keeping him, Mr. Moriarty. But clever men often do take a bit of breaking, you know. I make no promises.”

He’s still smiling with amused tolerance, but a little chill seeps back into his gaze. “I’ll enjoy watching you try.  Best get back to your princess, Miss Adler. I’ll see myself out.”

 


	2. Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The rules have it all wrong. A king taking a queen, that’s flesh trumping brains. Real winning, though, that’s brains trumping flesh.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TW for discussions of child abuse (threatened, not explicit).**

 

“’When I wished to find out how wise, or how stupid, or how good, or how wicked is anyone, or what are his thoughts at the moment, I fashion the expression of my face, as accurately as possible, in accordance with the expression of his, and then wait to see what thoughts or sentiments arise in my mind or heart, as if to match or correspond with the expression.’” – C. Auguste Dupin in Edgar Allan Poe, _The Purloined Letter_

 

**Chapter One**

**In which Irene makes some deductions about seductions.**

Irene sets up her Google alerts, as recommended, and delves into the Holmes and Watson blogs. The first is uphill work, all condescension and columns of data, but the second draws her in despite herself: artless tales of boys’ own adventures, asides both pithy and piss-taking, and underneath it all a comradely affection that could disarm the most cynical of readers. The comments alone are priceless human comedy.

It takes a few days for the first images to surface, and they are not what Irene expects.

From Moriarty’s hints, she’d conjured Holmes as some conventional alpha-male beauty, something faintly Teutonic and tinged with testosterone, like an older and steelier version of Prince William. Not this otherworldly creature with the long, weirdly-hollowed face and the hint of too many chins, wrapped in an operatic caricature of a coat.

A brief YouTube clip gives expressive mobility to the face and a predatory grace to his movement. The ridiculous coat suits him, she decides, and she’s known actors who would kill for those hands.  His nondescript blogger trails him watchfully in the clip’s final seconds, always a few steps behind, like a proper sub (but you never know with short men; bears watching).

And because Irene believes in verifying data where her more shadowy targets are concerned, and doesn’t believe in taking the Moriartys of this world at face value, she arranges for a little confessional roleplay with her MOD man. Showing off should always be encouraged.

“You’re lying,” she barks, tilting the flogging frame to the most exquisitely agonising angle, and giving a practised crack to her heaviest whip.  (Subtlety is wasted on this one.) “Your boss’ boss can’t possibly control every CCTV camera in the country.”

“He does!” the poor fellow gasps. “Mistress, I swear I’m telling the truth, it’s not just office gossip. I have to take the back alleys just to get here, you’ve no idea --”

“Yes, I know, you’re a perfect specimen of back-alley boy. Imagine, then, that he’s watching us _right now_ ,” and she lays an expert stripe across his buttocks, then another, and another, with audibly satisfying results.

Corroboration is pleasant and profitable, but Irene can already tell that Moriarty was right: this gambit will be nothing like her usual phone fodder, enticed and compromised and filed for a rainy day.

At the end of three weeks, she feels confident in her preliminary tally:

_What Sherlock Holmes likes: a good puzzle, for foreplay. Something challenging enough to keep boredom at bay. For buildup: confirmation that he’s the cleverest man in the room. For arousal, admiration; some stroking right before you bring down the whip. You can improvise from there; he’s a man of simple pleasures, after all._

_What Mycroft Holmes likes: playing Big Brother. Very likely, Big Brother in every sense of the term. Not simple at all._

_QED: You seduce Sherlock by outwitting him. You get to Mycroft when he decides to interfere. Or better yet: you set it up so that Mycroft has his fingerprints on the puzzle from the outset._

_That’ll do to go on with._

************************

Irene always plans for success, but even successful schemes need emergency exits, which is why she takes tea with her financial advisor at least once a fortnight. Alicia put herself through accounting school by pro-domming and now keeps everyone in the scene on the right side of Inland Revenue, while providing more rarefied services to a select few. She’s also made a career of looking and sounding like someone’s very sexy, very subby PA, something Irene has found useful on more than one occasion. There are advantages to having people chronically underestimate you; not a route that Irene herself will ever take, but she’s glad to have somebody who will do it for her when necessary.

“How much in the investment portfolio and how much overseas this year?” Irene asks, pouring out the Earl Grey. They’ve met in the Chelsea flat, always the neutral ground for negotiations.

Alicia shrugs a little. “Depends. You’re awfully liquid right now, which you should do something about if you don’t plan on becoming a tax exile.”

“You don’t say. I hardly thought I was approaching that bracket just yet.”

“Not in absolute wealth, but in terms of your jump in revenue over the last year, you’re getting to the danger zone.”

“Well. I shan’t do the tax exile nonsense, but I might be taking a bit of a sabbatical. Or even retiring, if all goes well.”

Alicia puts down her cup, one delicately shaped eyebrow rising to her hairline. “This is a first. Don’t tell me you’re getting bored.”

“Not as such, no.” Irene smiles. “But my instructions are for you to consider my taking a leave of absence. And how best to hide what may be a large influx of cash.”

“How large?”

Irene’s smile broadens. “Eight figures, minimum.”

“I see,” Alicia says, and she does. She has never directly questioned the sources of Irene’s periodic windfalls, although she’s shrewd enough to make some educated guesses. “Leave of absence means actually out of the UK?”

“Quite possibly. I’ve a hankering to go back to Tokyo for a while, and maybe tour Asia a bit.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Alicia says, and pauses. Damn her; Irene knows that hesitation. “Do you still need me as your cut-out for Kent?”

“If you don’t mind,” Irene says. “There’s no problem with that account, is there?”

“None at all; payments go out every month, like clockwork. I had a notice of a rate increase at the care centre this week, effective in January; I can authorise the additional deposits to cover it.” She hesitates again. “Do you plan on going down yourself, before you take off for parts unknown?”

Alicia’s voice remains neutral, but Irene still bridles a bit at the implied criticism. “I expect so. I’m not popping off just yet, darling; there’s no rush, is there? Nothing’s changed.”

“No,” Alicia says softly. “They have their instructions. I’ll hear if there’s any change.”

“Right, then.” Irene gathers up her fur. “Text me, will you? I must dash; left my riding crop in the Bentley.”

Irene has an appointment that afternoon, and a party that evening, and manages, by dint of a little effort, to let the conversation with Alicia sink below the surface of awareness. All the same, she has Kate swing by St. Pancras to pick up an untraceable round-trip ticket to Canterbury, date open.

*******************

1988-89

Irene has always lived in the present. It’s no surprise, then, that her memories of early childhood tend to be as hazy as a New Jersey sunset. They all seem to come in blurred sensations tinged orange and white: the ozone odor of Bayonne’s amber-pale skies, the cloying incense and brilliant altar-cloths at St. Casimir, the chemically sweet swirl of cheap ice cream cups, filched from the convenience store where her mom used to work.

They move once a year or so, from one cramped apartment to another. Her mom’s not home much. When she is, Irene is usually told to go play elsewhere, there’s a love. Wherever they live, she finds a cluster of kids for roughhousing games, in alleys and on rooftops and in abandoned buildings. She usually comes back after dark; the visitors are gone by then.  Once in a while her mom will make her sit and submit to hairstyling: ringlets, French braids, endless shampooing and fiddling with smelly gels and electric crimpers. Her mom calls this her homework.

Irene likes it because it’s about the only time her mom pays any attention to her. She dislikes it for the same reason.

Her mom never tells her _anything_. Nothing important, anyway. There’s a puzzling, excited note in her voice the few times she introduces her visiting men, but since they routinely vanish after a few weeks, Irene doesn’t bother to remember their names. She learns to distrust the information she does get: when her mom will return from work, what they’ll have for dinner, the meanings of words she hears on TV, why they can’t have a cat. Her mom has a vague way of twisting her bangs when she’s about to say something unreliable, although Irene can’t tell if she just doesn’t know or is making it up as she goes along.

Irene goes looking for answers sometimes, when she gets home from school and her mom is at work or class. She burrows into the crevices of her mom’s life and comes up mostly with dust and cookie crumbs (there’s always a hidden stash of Oreos in the bedstand, next to a packet of pills and some odd-smelling tubes of gel with rubbed-off labels). She uncovers a cheap jewellery box stuffed with beads and dangly earrings and a few heavier pieces, a watch and ring too big for her mom’s hands. She finds tattered paperbacks with bosomy women in the arms of muscley men and titles like “Rapture in the Sand.” She reads these diligently, noting down the words she doesn’t understand, because they might be important. Her mom certainly devours them as though they hold the secrets of the universe.

One day — and this she remembers with a knife-sharp, white-hot edge — her mom brings home a man unlike the rest: heavyset, thick fleshy nose, crescents of damp staining the shirt under his arms, and a harsh smell, equal parts sweat and something called Aqua Velva. She is instructed to call him Uncle Joseph. He sticks a meaty hand under her nose and booms, “Always wanted kids.” He is there at supper and there at church, there in the evenings, and for once her mom doesn’t send her away to play. “A chance for us to be a real family,” she breathes in Irene’s ear as she comes in, uncharacteristically, to kiss her goodnight. “Be nice to him.”

Irene tries. But she hates the way he smells, the way he plants kisses on her cheek, the way he pulls her on his lap like she’s five when her mom isn’t looking. His voice and his stink take up all the space in the room, and he doesn’t listen to her any more than her mom does. He insists on grace before meals and prayers before bedtime and asks tiresome questions about catechism class, and then one day her mom walks in while he’s bouncing her on his knee and she’s trying to pull away.

She’s sent to her room and instructed to do homework. Small chance, with all the yelling (English mixed with Polish) coming through the thin walls.

There’s a tense two weeks when her mom barely speaks to her, but often rubs at her reddened eyes and makes a point of staying home in the evenings. Uncle Joseph comes round during the day sometimes (she can always smell him, afterwards), but he’s never there when she gets in from school.

And then, abruptly, there’s a long ride on an airplane and a silver-haired woman on the other end of it, who has the hairstyle her mom calls “pageboy” and the brightest, coldest grey eyes Irene has ever seen.  She says she is Irene’s grandmother. And she will take Irene to a place called “Kent,” where her real memories will begin.

 

 

Irene’s first sight of her granny: hands on hips, chilly eyes cataloguing her without any particular signs of approval.

“So Ellie’s bollocksed up her life over some man again, has she? And left me holding the baby once more. Well. Not that you’re a baby anymore, which is the problem, isn’t it.” Another visual sweep like a gust of cold wind.  “Did he muck you about, is that why she’s off-loading you?”

Irene thinks of sweaty hands holding her, too tightly, on fleshy thighs, the ever-present stink of aftershave, and the awful, babying questions. “Um,” she says. “No?”

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph. What kind of mum treats a skinny eight-year-old as competition. Well.  You’ll be pretty one day soon, that’s clear enough, and lord knows Ellie was always too good-looking for her own good. Not that pretty matters a damn unless you’re clever. Are you clever?”

“I don’t know,” Irene says doubtfully. She tries to think of what makes people clever, and can’t fit any of it to being the skinny eight-year-old who doesn’t know anything _important_. “I’m no good in school.”

“Oh, _American_ schools.” A dismissive flick of the hand. “Sign of intelligence right there.  Still, the comprehensive won’t be much better.” Audible sigh. “I’d better have a word with Father Devlin, see if we can get you a scholarship to the sisters’.  Day-pupil only, I won’t have them take you as a convent boarder even if they’re willing to pay. They’ll teach you a load of nonsense, but keep your nose clean and they’ll get you through A-levels without you dropping a sprog of your own.”

The last part doesn’t make sense to Irene until much, much later, but in the meantime, Father Devlin does pay a visit, all greasy cassock and reek of cigarettes, and a disarming, toothy smile behind the rolling Irish vowels. Afterwards, over tea scented with something peaty and aromatic, Irene and her granny (“call me Aggie, everyone does, no need to feel my age any more than I do”) fill out the registration forms.

“Best not put you down as Pulawski,” Gran — Aggie says. “Bad enough to be a poor scholarship girl at the convent without a Polish handle to boot.  Besides, it’s not my name any more, not since Lech did his runner. “ She writes in “Irene Adler” in firm uppercase uncials.

Irene turns the name over on her tongue, soundlessly, and decides she likes it. It’s a little like a disguise, except that – even as a hand-me-down – it fits her better than anything she’s worn to date.

 

 

Aggie never talks to Irene like she’s a child. She won’t always tell her things, but as nearly as Irene can reckon (and she’s learning to read what Aggie calls _tells_ ), she never lies and seldom evades.

“Business,” Aggie says about the dawn deliveries of clinking crates to the garden-shed, and the furtive visits of men (and a few women) to Aggie’s back parlour at odd times of day. “Business” also applies to the late-night card games that fill the parlour with smoke on Fridays and Tuesdays. “My business,” Aggie clarifies, to explain why the parlour door remains shut and Irene goes to bed early on card nights, “and nobody else’s.  Best you should be able to say you don’t know, if anyone asks.”

Irene isn’t sure who might ask her, but she gets an idea one night when the stair-door creaks open after one long card game and she hears Aggie shushing someone as they stumble upstairs together. The man’s boots squeak horribly on the carpet. Then a jumble of sound filters through the wall from the bedroom next door, bedsprings and rustling and faint smacking noises, and the man moans “Aggie, Aggie,” as if in pain.

“Hush, Frank, you’ll wake the child.” The bedsprings achieve a regular rhythm.

“Oh, Aggie, Aggie, uhhhh.” His distress amplifies, alarmingly, and Irene sits up, wondering if she should go to her gran’s aid. There’s a long muffled pause, and then Aggie laughs suddenly.

“Frank, you complete tosser,” she says, but there’s warmth and amusement in her voice. “Here, wipe yourself up, for the love of god. Are you all right to walk home, then?”

“Aggie, Aggie, you’re so crooool to me.”

“Cruel is what Annabel will be if you don’t get yourself home before one. Christ, you’re a mess. Come on, now, I’ll drive you to the junction, and you can walk from there.”

Irene hears them descend, the same squeaking and bumping in reverse, followed by the sound of Aggie’s old Cortina starting up. After some thought, she gets up, puts on her dressing-gown, and goes down to the kitchen, pulling the footstool to the tap and filling the kettle carefully.

When Aggie opens the kitchen door, Irene has successfully poured them two cups of steaming tea, and only spilled a little bit in her own saucer. Aggie looks her over searchingly, then sits down with a half-smile tugging one side of her mouth.

“Business?” Irene asks, both hands closed around her cup and blowing to cool it.

“Partly,” Aggie answers, mirroring her gesture as she lifts her own cup. “And mostly a few giggles to go with it. Nothing says that business can’t bring you a bit of fun.” And then she smiles conspiratorially at Irene, who feels her own mouth stretch broadly with the pure pleasure of being included.

 

 

And that’s how it often goes. Tea-time is best, like this, when it’s the two of them in the kitchen with a fry-up and the smoky brew that Aggie favors, made even more fragrant with the topping she adds from her little flask.

“You come from a long line of survivors, you know,” Aggie says. “My people made it out of Vienna just in time. Didn’t matter a damn that Papa’s family converted yonks ago, they were still Jews in Hitler’s eyes and we’d have been marched off to the ovens with the rest. Bombs were still falling on England when I was born. My mum damn near popped me out in a Tube shelter. Not that growing up in Spitalfields was any picnic, either.”

“What about Pulawski? Was he a survivor too?”

“Eh, literally, just. Most of his family was killed in the War. He wasn’t a very strong-minded person himself. Soft-hearted, though, or he’d never have married me when I was pregnant with Ellie.”

Irene hadn’t read her mum’s slushpile of romances for nothing. “Wasn’t that the decent thing to do?”

Aggie laughs. “Oh, very decent, given that Ellie wasn’t his child. Which he probably guessed.  And then he left me for some other soft young thing, so I suppose it works out in the end.” She sips her tea with no signs of distress whatever, so Irene feels emboldened to ask,

“So who was my real grandfather, anyway?”

Aggie waves her hand – that careless flick, now, that’s a tell of sorts, although Irene’s still working it out – and says, a little too casually, “Nobody. Posh git. Never said I was clever at eighteen, did I? Your poor mum was worse.”

“I don’t know who my father was, either. “

“No, and you’re better off, no doubt, since he took himself off as soon as your mum was up the spout. Anyway, it’s the women who count in our family.” She reaches into the drawer on her side of the table and pulls out the worn deck of cards. She begins shuffling in a series of practiced motions. “The rules have it all wrong. A king taking a queen, that’s flesh trumping brains. Real winning, though, that’s brains trumping flesh.” She deals five cards to each of them. “Now. Let’s see how many tricks you can win off me tonight. Play for quarter-pennies, and you scrub the loo pan if I win the pot.”

“And if I win?”

“Mmm. You won’t tonight. Tell you what, though, you take seven tricks from me, and we’ll go into Canterbury at the weekend for tea and snooker.”

 

 

(Irene doesn’t win, of course, and she only manages three tricks, but that’s never stopped her from taking the wager, every time.)

 

*********************

Alicia and Irene meet again, and refine their contingent wheres and hows; there’s a discreet flurry of texts from Moriarty, directing her attention to the Sherlock-and-John show unfolding in the press and blogosphere (not that she needs the links; Google keeps her well apprised). One morning’s paper brings her the silliest image yet, a Sherlock capped with some anachronistic bit of upper-class outdoor gear, sporting an expression both sly and furtive. How very appropriate. The hunter’s about to become the fox, the rider the mount to be broken. Her prey, her horse, she thinks, spreading a possessive hand over the newsprint. She’s ready.

She dials Moriarty’s number with a steady hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update within the week, exact date TBD.


	3. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A long breath; another; the tremors and adrenaline ebb away.
> 
> “And was it good for you too, dear?’ she whispers, and smiles to herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **TW this chapter for coercion, endangerment, dubious consent, and suggested safeword manipulation**. You will also find cultural appropriation of a questionable sort in the context of a scene.

 

 

“But the more I reflected upon the daring, dashing and discriminating ingenuity of D—…the more satisfied I became that, to conceal this letter, [he] had resorted to the comprehensive and sagacious expedient of not attempting to conceal it at all.”

\---C. Auguste Dupin in Edgar Allan Poe, _The Purloined Letter_

**Chapter 2**

**In which Irene invades and conquers, breaks and enters, and fails to hide her light under a bushel. And there is a brief romance with a coat.**

 

The coat is _lovely_.

It swings smoothly with her as she vaults backwards out her window and rappels to street level (bless Miss Wilcox’s gym courses, those long-ago days at St. Brigid’s). _Code red_ assumes she’s naked or near to it: the drill has her retrieving the duffel stashed under the stairs and unrolling the mac inside, usually at a cost of precious seconds. But this time, she simply slips the ballet flats out of the side pocket and onto her feet, and is far down the alley before she hears the first sirens shrilling on her doorstep.

She pats the coat pockets and pulls out a blue cashmere scarf, winding it once around her head to disguise and protect her hair. On with her dark glasses, and she becomes yet another Belgravia matron out for a stroll, one who’s simply pinched her husband’s tweed for the afternoon run to Ottolenghi.

And who wouldn’t pinch a coat like this -- one gigantic, gorgeous tell?

The scarf: downy-soft and smells of a complicated shampoo with notes of sage and laurel. The collar: readily flips up, brushing her cheeks; of course, it was up in his funny hat photo, and what a frame it makes for that bone structure. Hints of an old-fashioned lime-cream aftershave. None of the scents readily identifiable, but understated in a way that screams luxury; bespoke blends, very likely. A few faint traces of tobacco. A far cry from the assertive scents that pass as “masculine” these days; Irene inhales the mélange with pleasure.

And oh, the body of the coat itself, a study in strict geometry and luxuriant excess, a dense heft of cloth that, settling, pulls her shoulders back and lengthens her stride; a coat that prompts a confident gait and an erect posture; a coat with slippery elm sweets and evidence bags littering its pockets (ah, also a phone; she can have some fun with that); the coat of a logician, a dandy, and – whatever he may pretend -- an utterly self-indulgent sensualist.

He’s remarkable. Truly. Rocked back on his heels only twice and otherwise rolled with the punches, including that love-tap from Doctor Watson. (That blush of swollen flesh around the cut, like a beauty mark: a precise slash between the points signifying honesty and ego.) Gave himself away completely when the American goon threatened to have Watson shot; anyway, you don’t need to be Irene Adler to know that the doctor is…by no means just a sub trailing after Master. Switch dynamics; not really her personal cup of tea, but amusing, might be useful.

Irene reaches the end of the mews and turns right, keeping up the same controlled hurry. The weight of the flaring coat-skirts opens up her stride and lowers her center of gravity; it’s delightfully freeing after a day spent perched on her Louboutins in a tight skirt. She should get some properly tailored menswear again. She could really go for a coat lined with this sort of buttery satin, now sliding against her nipples and thighs, cool to the flesh, prompting a delicious shiver even as her blood rushes and warms. She can smell herself now, an animal tang underscoring the herbal scents rising from collar and scarf.

(And really, why lounge about in a sheet when you could parade the streets naked like this? But then this coat is like Irene’s own skin, a form of battle-dress, brazenly assertive and sensuous at all once.)

She swings into Chesham Place and strides into the Belgraves Hotel. She casually pulls out an old key card she’d nicked, nods to the concierge, and passes over to the elevator. Momentum, she thinks; the trick is to act as if you belong, and to keep moving. She swipes the card (still working; they usually do) and presses the button for the health club. At this time of day, the gym is likely enough to be deserted, but she pauses to scan the room from the sign-in desk. A lot of chrome and enameled steel, but not a woman in sight, which means the loos should be free; good. Her legs are trembling, just a little.

Once locked into a stall, Irene lets out a whooshing breath. The adrenaline still buzzes and prickles under her skin; she can feel the quickened beat of blood in her throat as she unties the scarf. She starts to pull trousers and shirt out of her duffel, but then pauses, and after a moment, leans against the door. She closes her eyes and unbuttons the coat, letting her fingers wander over her belly, inhaling the mingled smells, his and hers.

 _Holmes, stumbling to the floor gracelessly as she strikes him with the crop, again and again_ so that her fingers still tingle with the electric heat of it; she slides one thumb over her clit, and _the shock and calculation in his eyes, the moment she’d dropped into his lap and got her first whiff of him._ She insinuates a finger inside herself, still circling with the thumb, and with her other hand tugs the coat lapels together, a sweet sliding friction over her nipples. _A swirl of elegant suit and limbs as he pistol-whipped that American,_ and oh, Irene loves topping other doms, she _loves_ pulling their little victories out from under them; two fingers inside, now, just on _that_ spot, she usually gets a good spurt from this, and _oh ohohoh_. She gasps loudly, once, at the drawn-out pulse of wet and heat, and slumps against the door, the trail of slickness traveling down her thighs.

Languid now, she wipes herself on the coat lining.

A long breath; another; the tremors and adrenaline ebb away.

“And was it good for you too, dear?’ she whispers, and smiles to herself.

He’ll smell it, of course, and unless he’s truly as inexperienced as Moriarty thinks, he’ll know. But she may as well push the point home. She digs the phone out of his breast pocket. It’s not even locked; how arrogant of him, or how naïve. She goes into the contacts and adds her BlackBerry, then pulls up the custom tone menu.

(Pity she hadn’t thought to record herself just now, but for all its staginess, this moan is unmistakably _hers_.)

Five minutes later, once she’s slipped out the service exit and hailed a cab, she texts Kate with their battle plan ( _Evac protocol B,_ covering what to retrieve from the flat, where to stash the Bentley, and how to shake any surveillance between Belgravia and their Chelsea rendezvous). She spares a few minutes to work through the puzzle of the dead hiker and the backfiring car before turning to her break-in plan for Baker Street. A pretty little challenge, but nothing Irene can't handle; simple matter of hiding in plain sight.

 _Not for blackmail, just for insurance_. Irene fingers the Vertu in her pocket and smiles. The new passcode is perfect, four letters filched and tapped out right under – well, above – his posh little nose, at just the right psychological moment. A sweet victory, but one that she’ll savor all the more once she pulls off this next bit. She has the cabbie let her out at the top of the Baker Street alley.

 

 

 _One-nil Adler,_ Irene texts, a half hour later. _Think I’ve hooked him for the next round._ She reflects a moment and adds, _You were right. He’s fun. And quite dishy._

 _Told ya,_ comes the reply. And after a minute, _Don’t get attached, remember. He goes back into the toy-box when you’re done._

 _Haven’t forgotten,_ Irene answers. _Not really my type, you know._

_You say that now._

That’s the part she’ll remember best, later.

 

**************

Clarissa used to call the Chelsea flat – a two-room studio, actually, just off the Embankment – her tart’s nest, and the taint of slumming still hangs over its high ceilings, dormers and faded glory.

To Irene, newly landed in London, it had seemed an exotic lair of mirrors and curly woodwork, with an enticing glimpse of the river from the terrace and a sort of posh hush about the adjacent streets. Here, she and Clarissa would rehearse their scenes (Lady Irina and Madame La Marquise, because of course bloody Clarissa couldn’t go into a loo, let alone a club, without an aristocratic handle) and shag each other blind ( _nipples bitten and licked until permanently swollen and scarlet; fingers tangling through satiny hair_ ). Three years of it, until Clarissa’s drinking and Clarissa’s rages and Clarissa’s petty jealousies had pretty much done for them as a duo act; and then she’d finally gotten Clarissa’s husband (banker, married her for connections and political ambition, and what a joke that was) to pack her off to rehab. Tenancy of the studio, and a nice little bit of change under the pillow, had been Irene’s price for discretion, her first successful foray into the art of leverage.

It’s hard to believe, now, that this is where she’d launched her professional life. Alicia hadn’t thought it upmarket enough to last beyond a year or so, and she’d been right. And so Irene used it to receive the trust-funded urban primitives, the more bohemian and well-heeled refugees from the arts, while carefully cultivating her wealthier contacts elsewhere ( _can’t let the nobs think they’re slumming, Renie_ ). Eventually, the “bijou” tag so beloved of estate agents had failed to disguise the “poky and seedy” bit, and anyway, Irene’s ambitions had already sailed off to tonier districts. Moonlight on the Thames aside, the studio has little to recommend it besides the CCTV blind spots.

She hadn’t reckoned with an extended _code red_ stay, let alone one with Kate. But it’s clear that Belgravia is off-limits for the immediate future.

It takes finesse to keep a low profile while pursuing her business. She accordingly calls in a few favours off her phone trove, and arranges for some out-of-town meetings in discreet country inns. She even takes up a longstanding offer for a cruise down the Nile. Her clients supply the security; her travel logistics and documents are, as always, impeccable, the fruit of Moriarty’s contacts as well as her own.

Dates in town now take place in hotels, an arrangement Irene has always disliked. It puts her too close to the outcall trade, and while she has nothing but respect for the hardworking hotel girl, she prefers to separate herself from their ranks. So much easier to craft a persona and market it effectively, rather than be all things to all comers.

She amuses herself between dates (and sometimes during) with flirtatious texts to Sherlock, and tries not to show her irritation with Kate’s growing restiveness.

Because Kate is a problem.

 

 

“I was followed again this morning,” Kate says as she mixes Irene’s hair colour.

“On car or on foot?” Irene asks, tweezers in hand as she studies her brows in the mirror.

“Don’t do that,” Kate says immediately. “Please. Mistress, let me do it for you once I’ve applied the colour. It was a car. Another black Audi.”

Kate must be rattled, to call her “Mistress” outside of scene time.  Tedious. Irene’s tone is dismissive. “Mycroft’s people, then. Nothing to worry about. I don’t care if they know where we are, as long as they don’t tell the bloody Americans.”

Kate’s only response is to begin brushing on the colour a little more vigorously than usual. She refuses to catch Irene’s eye in the mirror. Sulking it is, then.

Irene understands, really. The thing about Kate is that she’s almost pure sub, but her kink is service, not slavery; she prefers playful conspiracy to ironclad roleplay. Their life together works because they’ve kept a lightness of touch outside the bedroom (in contrast to the heavy hand of correction that pleases them both inside it).

(Not a whisper of a safeword for almost six years, and oh, Irene’s a bit proud of that. _Why that one?_ she’d asked, because she’s already worked out that Kate’s as much in flight from the past as she is, albeit for different reasons. _Because I needed to feel safe there, and I never did,_ Kate answers, and Irene wisely doesn’t push after that.)

But the current need for discretion has forcibly rearranged their boundaries, starting with dress and appearance.  By now, all the wrong people know about Irene’s ginger satellite, and disguise has become both practical and protective.  Yet Irene knows that she’s pushing it, making Kate wear a bra and pants instead of a corset and suspenders, and taking away her carefully-crafted uniforms (secretary/chauffeur/maid/stylist) in favour of hoodies and jeans. Clothes make the woman, and Kate is an exquisitely pretty and confident creature when in control of her inner and outer layers; her present gear, in addition to the mousy hair dye, leaves her drab, a cheeky robin turned sparrow.

Well. Perhaps they can do something about the last bit.

“Mix up another lot of this colour when you’re done,” she says, a touch of persuasion rather than command in her voice. “And I’ll tell you all about our new client while I put it on you.”

Kate only looks at her quizzically, but complies, putting on a salon cape and seating herself in Irene’s place.

Irene dons gloves and begins stroking on the colour quickly. She loves this part, whichever end she’s on; something shameless, almost obscene, about fingers dragging the paste through abundant hair.

“You remember the Arrigo Boccone show last spring,” she begins. “The one where those pairs of lookalike girls modelled all the menswear. Best catwalk we saw all season.”

“Mmm, oh yes,” Kate says. “The dinner jackets in Japanese textiles. The shirts with the geometric cutouts. Those oversized coats.”

“The coats. Precisely. Signor Boccone is about to become our client, and I intend to get a coat out of him as payment.” Irene grins, ferociously. “He has a fetish for twins, as well as for women in tailoring, and there’s a touch of shibari about those shirts, don’t you think? He likes to watch. He especially likes the idea of being restrained while watching.”

“You’ve interviewed him already?” Kate asks.

“Darling, he tries _so_ hard to be provocative, it’s rather charming, really. When he released his new fragrance, he told a roomful of reporters that a sexy man should smell like two women had just come all over him.  Well. He put it more delicately, but that’s what he meant. I don’t have to talk to him to know what he likes.  But Alicia’s set up a meeting this week, and you and I will take it from there.”

Kate shivers a little under Irene’s fingers. She doesn’t usually take direct part in client scenes, and Irene generally has her in a harness or chastity belt when she does: stage dressing as much as assistant. “What do you need me to do, Mistress?”

Good girl. So very good; so biddable. Irene smiles and lets her voice fall into the intimate coo that she knows will have Kate squirming in seconds. She drags her dye brush caressingly along the scalp.

“We’ll set it all up in advance, safety signals and all. I’ll instruct him to be naked and kneeling on the mat before we arrive. We’ll go in together wrapped in men’s yukata, made up to look as similar to each other as possible. We’ll bow to him before I gag him, and then we both put him into the modified kikkou with the crotch wrapping. Just tight enough to bite and leave a beautiful pattern. We’ll go slowly, our fingers sliding over each other as we pass and wrap and knot. He’ll feel it, too, a lovely tightening embrace of cord and nimble fingers. He’ll be able to smell us. He’ll struggle a bit, but he won’t safe-signal.”

Kate inhales audibly and then stills as Irene tugs on her hair.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” she says mildly. “Keep quiet, and hands on the vanity. You’re not touching yourself yet.” She resumes her brushwork, drawing long spikes along the parting, one eye on Kate’s expression in the mirror.

“When we’re done, I’ll slide the robe off your shoulders and turn you to face him. I’ll run the crop down your back and tease your back cleft a little, just enough to make your nipples stand up.  He’ll have quite a view of that, kneeling at your feet. Then I’ll step back a few paces. At my command, you’ll crawl towards me, your arse in the air. Give him a good look at what you’ve got, since he hasn’t a prayer of touching it.”

Irene smiles at Kate in the mirror and takes note of her dilated pupils, the fluttering pulse at that white throat.

“At my signal, you’ll kneel up and pull off my sash, slowly. I’ll shrug off the robe and press my cunt into your face. That’s your cue to start licking, darling. I’ll probably shift us a little so that he gets a good look, but you’re not to touch me except with your tongue, and yourself not at all. You’ll be wet, though. He’ll notice.”

Irene finishes spiking dye through Kate’s hair and strips off her gloves. “You’re wet now, aren’t you,” she says, softly, and runs her hands over Kate’s shoulders to tweak her nipples, hard under the bra and jumper.  Kate jerks once, but doesn’t answer; she doesn’t have to. Irene can smell the bite of her arousal through all her layers. “Knickers down now, darling; we need matching pubes for this.”

Irene has long preferred to landscape rather than raze her pubic thatch, as there is nothing sexier than a small coil of curly hair rich with an aroused woman’s fragrance. Kate, thank goodness, has followed her example. She pivots Kate’s chair a few degrees and nudges her thighs apart with her knee.  Kate wriggles out of her pants, a lovely flush rising upwards from her belly, and raises her legs to rest against the vanity. There’s a sweet, heady seep already dampening and darkening the red hair between her legs; Irene imagines it darker still, a splash of brunette against the milk-white skin.

“You’ll make it last,” she says quietly, reaching for the protective cream and leaning down to spread a film of it around Kate’s pubes. Kate shivers again and clutches at the arms of her chair. “I’ll be talking to him about his little fantasy of having a matched pair, when we don’t need him in the slightest to get off. I’ll tell him how perfect you are, your soft tongue and soft skin and your beautiful little breasts, how you are me and belong to me and you’re not for him at all.  And finally, I’ll have you do the three-finger trick, you know the one, two outside and one in. Make me gush for you, darling. I’ll lean down and kiss you and wipe the come off you and then walk over to him, slowly, and smear it all over his face and hair.”

Kate shifts a bit on the chair and licks her lips. The scent of her arousal grows denser, a cocktail of musk, soap and pheromones, with a little bite of the hair dye spiking through. Irene dons another pair of thinner gloves and eases a towel under Kate’s thighs. Her knuckles brush the labia, prompting a small jump and a bitten-off whimper. Irene immediately grabs and twists the hood of her clit.

“ _Quiet,_ ” she hisses. “Not yet. Not now, and not then.” She releases Kate and picks up the brush, beginning to work colour delicately through the springy hair. “We’ll have to see what comes next. Maybe he comes on the spot, and we switch to a punishment bind. Maybe I put _you_ in a punishment bind. Would you like that? Having him watch me tie you up, the cords criss-crossing those lovely breasts, arching your back? You’ll still be so wet, so on display, your nipples so, so erect, like they are now.” A few more brushstrokes, and Irene pulls off the gloves again.  Careful not to disturb the dyed hair, she parts the labia and flicks the welling moisture over the clit. Kate jerks, then stills. _Good._

“We’ll have to improvise a bit here to get the angle just right,” she says softly, gently rubbing the hood with her thumb and sliding the middle finger inside. She raises her other hand to brush and grip Kate’s jaw. God, those eyes – all pupil now, it’s gorgeous, how on offer she is, how she takes and _takes_. “Maybe I’ll suspend you over him. Or maybe I’ll leave your legs free so that you can straddle him without touching. Either way, darling, he’s going to see me over your shoulder, and I’m going to press _here_ ,” angling in a second finger and pressing hard, rapid bursts over the g-spot, “and _here_ ,” dropping her other hand and sliding one finger up, up the perineum, pressing inward, “until you come right on his face – _like that_ ,” as Kate finally convulses and jackknives with a soft wail. Irene catches her and eases her up to sitting position again, noting with satisfaction the spreading patch of damp on the towels.

“He won’t touch you at all,” she whispers, resting her hands on Kate’s shoulders, and glancing up at their mirrored images. Look at that, the two of them with their hair in spikes, like the world’s worst bedhead; ridiculous that that should be so sexy. “He’ll want to come on you, but I won’t let him. I’ll deny him and deny him and he’ll watch you come again and again and again. I’ll use the crop to tease you until you beg for mercy.   _Then_ I’ll let him come.  We’ll have to do something special for aftercare, because after that? He’s bound to pass out. So to speak.”

Kate hums a little, her breath still coming in short bursts. “Whose fantasy is this, anyway?” she whispers.

“Oh, yours and mine, for now, darling. It will take a little tweaking once I meet him, but it’ll do as a preliminary sketch. A nice little twist on the standard male fantasy, don’t you think? But at least he’ll get showered with the juices of two women, just like he wanted. I think we’ll all enjoy that, hmmm?”

  
  
It doesn’t quite go as planned.

Not the scene itself; that’s brilliant, better than her sketch, even. Boccone does in fact pass out from the delicious, prolonged orgasm denial; Irene revives him capably, and feeds him slices of orange while Kate, eyes still somewhat glazed, unravels the binding. He can’t take his eyes off the rope pattern printed on his skin. Irene has no trouble extracting a promise of a coat – “something I design just for you, Signorina Adler” – as well as a hefty fee and a fervent request for a return engagement on his next London visit. All par for the course.

But just as the valet draws up with their town car (one-night lease, false driving license and address, Kate waiting at the curb while Irene hangs back in the shadow of the vestibule), a screech of wheels erupts from around the corner and a vast vehicle slams over the median to block them.

Irene barely registers the make – _no genteelly menacing Audi, this is a Land Rover, Americans are such size queens_ – before she’s vaulted to the driver’s side, shoved Kate over to shotgun, and flung the car into reverse. She bumps right over the median and hits the pedal. Her driving’s unpractised and her gear changes jerky, but she has the car dodging two quick corners and hurtling down Kensington Road in thirty seconds.

Headlights bloom into the rear-view mirror, and Irene hears a whistling crack over the whine of the engine. The mirror on the passenger side shatters, and Kate gasps and keens.

“Duck,” Irene says, “and hang on,” swiveling the wheel and bumping across the median again. She executes a quick right at the next corner and then bears left into a long alley, barely wide enough for the car. They scrape against a skip at the end. Irene turns into the dogleg just beyond, and brakes. “Come on,” she yells joyously, jumping out, and Kate follows, a little shakily. “On my signal, shove as hard as you can,” and Kate dodges behind the skip while Irene delves inside. Not too full; good, she doesn’t think there’s time to empty it much. She grabs a smelly, squashy bag and hefts it anyway.

A flare at the end of the alley, and headlights bear down upon them again.

Irene waits until the car is just in range, and chucks the bag straight at the windshield, where it explodes with a satisfying _splat_.

“Now!” she yells. A shot rings out, and she ducks behind the skip, shoving with all her strength. The Rover collides with a crunch.

Irene cackles and grabs Kate. They tumble back into the car and squeal off, even as a knot of men swarm over the skip and take aim. Idiots; they’ll get themselves killed with their own ricochets in here. She turns left at the end of the alley and then doubles back around, zigzagging through the southbound streets toward the Embankment.

Irene hums under her breath and glances at Kate, who is shaking. “Darling, relax,” she says. “That was _brilliant_ , and you did wonderfully.”

“They were shooting at us,” Kate whispers.

“They’re Americans, darling; they have guns instead of brains. Of course they were shooting.”

“What if they know where we are? I think Mycroft knows.”

“Darling, if they knew where we were, they wouldn’t have tried to catch us at the hotel. Either Signor Boccone was indiscreet, or they’ve got to the staff. Doesn’t matter. I’ll have Alicia deal with Boccone, and we won’t use that hotel again.” She pulls into another alley and rolls to its unlit end. “Here we are.”

“This is seven streets over from the flat,” Kate protests. “It’s not safe to be out in the open. And what are you going to do about the car?”

“Oh, we can call the hire service and tell them where to find it. Say it broke down, and we didn’t want to leave it on the street. And stop fussing. We’ll be fine if we go over the rooftops; it’s a good bit less than seven streets that way.”

It’s fortunate that they’ve worn flats for tonight, because the next bit would be hell in heels, and it anyway Kate’s legs won’t stop shaking. Irene has to physically throw her across one of the gaps when she balks at jumping. They’re both tired and a bit bruised when they lift the roof-trap to their building, but the adrenaline is still singing under Irene’s skin. Once inside the flat, she presses Kate against the wall and kisses her, tenderly but with tongue and intent.

“Such an evening,” she murmurs. “Make us a nice cup of tea, love? And then a bath together, mmm?” She steps aside and tosses her wrap over the sofa.

“Irene,” Kate says, and the usage and tone ring flat.

Kate never calls her by her given name. Irene glances over at her sharply.

Kate crosses her arms, a hunched, defensive posture. “Irene, they were trying to kill you. They would have killed us both.”

“Old news, darling. Oh, I suppose you were knocked out when they threatened to blow my brains out in Eaton Square. You should have seen Sherlock pistol-whip their head buffoon; it was ridiculously hot.”

“Irene,” says Kate, and why does she sound so desperate? “Whatever you’re doing, it’s dangerous, and I don’t think you’re in control of it.”

A small, cold knot of anger begins to coil in Irene’s stomach. “I’m as in control as I need to be, darling. As always. You don’t think I can take care of you, is that it?”

“I don’t think you can protect _yourself_. Not — not all the time.”

There’s a pause. Irene waits for her to add “And then what would become of me?” but she doesn’t. They lock eyes.

Irene pivots, deliberately, and stalks into the other room. She seats herself at the vanity and begins to remove her makeup methodically. After a moment, Kate hovers into her view in the mirror, leaning against the door-jamb. The silence grows taut.

For once, Irene breaks first. “I never pegged you for a coward, Kate dear. I had the distinct impression that you never _wanted_ to be safe. That I gave you a danger you _craved_.”

Another long pause, during which Irene has time to get off her foundation and false lashes, time to review six years of unspoken as well as explicit boundaries. Finally Kate says, “This is different.”

“Well,” Irene says coolly, swabbing cold cream over her eyelids. “If you’re so afraid, you can go and stay with Alicia. I daresay you’ll find plenty to commiserate about.” Kate’s always been jealous; easy spot to press and bruise. “Or you can always go back to Glasgow. I’m sure your family will be _thrilled_ to see you.”

A pause from behind her, and then Kate repeats “Glasgow” in that soft, submissive tone that Irene associates with breathless writhing against the eggshell sheets. She looks up at their joint reflections, at Kate’s averted face, the crossed forearms and whitened knuckles, and the realization hits.

Not an echo. A bloody _safeword_.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The "Vertu" is, of course, Irene's "cameraphone," so-called because she has disabled its connectivity and only uses its camera and data storage. My headcanon, however, is that she prefers to call it by its brand name, for reasons that will become clear later in the story. It is certainly a fabulous, over-the-top bauble, well in keeping with its precious contents and Irene's style, as the [Sherlockology entry makes clear](http://www.sherlockology.com/props/irenes-camera-phone).
> 
> I seem to pick my fandoms strictly for their coat porn opportunities. A special thanks to 51stCenturyFox for [enticing me to the dark side](http://archiveofourown.org/works/40657).


	4. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A clever man needs conditioning before you can break him, after all. Still, she looks forward to getting past the one-sided text flirtation to something a little more hands-on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warnings this chapter: non-explicit violence and gore, character death.**

 

 

“Now, in my opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow. That trick of his of breaking in on his friends’ thoughts with an apropos remark after a quarter of an hour’s silence is really very showy and superficial.” — Sherlock Holmes in Arthur Conan Doyle, _A Study in Scarlet_

**CHAPTER THREE**

**Merry bloody Christmas and a Happy New Year.**

 

_I need to disappear_ , she texts.

            _Disappear or “disappear?”_

_Bit of both. Think the hunters are catching up. Time for the next step, anyway._

            _Is this a request for my services? Because sorry, darling, Sherlock dismantled that part of my operation._ And after a moment, _By which I mean that I let him. Part of the game._

Irene snorts aloud. _I’m sure you have other options. But no, I have my own arrangements._

There’s a longer wait before the Blackberry chimes again. _Sherlock knows the difference between frozen and fresh blood, fyi._

Irene rolls her eyes. She’s well aware; she’s found Sherlock’s blog _extremely_ helpful on the matter of bloodstains. She’s practiced simulating arterial spray with the aid of a bedsheet and tourniquet. Kate had gone white as said sheet and stumbled out of the room. Come to think of it, she should have known right then that she wouldn’t be able to stomach what was coming.

Her exit scenario was supposed to convince the Americans while leaving a long trail of breadcrumbs for Sherlock to chase, with a suitably dramatic resurrection in the third act. Giving up the Vertu is a necessary, if painful part of the script; there’s no more persuasive way to shift character from “the Woman who beat you” to “damsel in distress.”

It would have been such a lovely opening act. She’d have woken Kate this morning and sent her to buy travel gear, nothing too flashy. Packing up the essentials for a long trip tonight, but leaving plenty behind to set the stage: a home invasion, not a flight. Then tomorrow, they’d have methodically turned the flat into a crime scene – overturning chairs, rifling drawers, smashing some chosen bits of crockery. Planting Irene’s blood strategically. They’d have been high on adrenaline and naked by the end of it and Irene would have pushed Kate down on the bed one last time and worked her over her thoroughly with the new vibrator before having a delicious, prolonged frot on her face. Then she’d have kissed her and produced the air tickets with a flourish. They’d have detoured to Baker Street en route, long enough for Irene to hide the Vertu in plain sight, and then winged their way to Christmas in Ibiza.

The essentials of the plan will still work, but what a chore to have to pull it off solo – no one to admire or applaud or share the adrenaline afterglow.

She can only hope there’s someone worth her time in Ibiza.

It’s December 23rd, and for the first time in almost a decade, Irene is alone.

It’s strange, this absence of another person on whom she can sharpen her wits or, as needed, her claws. Before Kate (lovely; cowardly), there had been Clarissa (tiresome) and Maddy (too vanilla), and in between and all around the hundreds she’s shagged and dommed for fun and profit; none of them, of course, as clever as Aggie, before their lives went to shit. No one has ever been as clever as Aggie.

Well, until Sherlock. (Moriarty: cunning, but deranged. Doesn’t count.)

Much pleasanter to think about Sherlock than about _cold anger hurt pride betrayal threat of boredom._ It really is a pity that their next round will likely be the last. He’s the best challenge and the most delicious quarry she’s had in _forever_ , and she’s tempted to drag it out a bit more.  A clever man needs conditioning before you can break him, after all. Still, she looks forward to getting past the one-sided text flirtation to something a little more hands-on.

_And one mustn’t leave his resident PA-slash-brother-in-arms-slash-spouse out of the loop._  Not really a happy thought, that; her flash of three-sided possibilities dissolves into a brief, bitter spasm of envy.

She pours herself a rare whisky and turns on the telly. Tom Cruise is making an ass of himself on Jonathan Ross. She picks up her BlackBerry. _BBC One. You’ll laugh,_ she texts.

 

 

She’s en route to Gatwick, the Vertu safely nestled on the Baker Street mantelpiece (all decked in cards and fairy lights; how touchingly domestic), when her phone vibrates. Expecting a rattled inquiry from Sherlock, she glances at it casually, then swears and picks up.

“Yes, what is it?” she asks sharply.

There’s a tiny but audible intake of breath, and then Moriarty’s voice comes, smooth and chill. “Well. _So_ glad that you are not stupid enough to go back to Eaton Square; I would have been _very_ disappointed.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Bit of excitement at the old digs,” he drawls. “Gunfire early this evening. You did ask me to have an eye kept on the place, didn’t you?”

For a moment, everything freezes, goes both motionless and cold. Then adrenaline slams through her at gale force.

“Are you there?” Irene demands. “Are you inside?”

“Of course not. But I’ve been told, quite reliably, that a woman wearing your clothes and your hair has had her face shot off in your drawing-room. Dear me. Well, congratulations on not being dead; it would have been terribly inconvenient.”

_Inconvenient._  Irene goes rigid.

_Glasgow._

“You didn’t set it up, my dear, did you? It would have been fiendishly clever if you had. Shame to let that ingenious rig-up in your safe go to waste. Or no, this was probably the Americans, wasn’t it?”

Irene’s stomach plunges, ice and adrenaline chasing each other all the way down. “That’s my assistant you’re talking about,” she forces out. It takes every ounce of control to keep her voice level.  She can’t maintain it. “Of course I didn’t set it up. I’ve been doing everything in my bloody power to keep us both from being shot.” The words tumble out scattershot, each one an appalling, unforgivable tell.

“My condolences, then.” He doesn’t sound sorry at all, the bastard. There’s a pause. “On the other hand, pity not to make the best of it.”

“ _What_ are you on about.” Dear god, she has to get out this car. She slides open the partition window. “Driver, please pull off at the next exit; change of plans.”

“I mean that there is nothing more persuasive than an actual dead body. Certainly for your pursuers. Not to mention when dealing with Sherlock Holmes.”

“She’s taller than I am.” Was. Kate has — had a few lovely inches on her, all in the legs, although their measurements were otherwise nearly identical. “He’ll spot the difference.”

“Actually,” he pauses, for effect she thinks, “if you’ve hooked him properly, darling, I think he might not.”

Irene draws breath harshly. She remembers, abruptly, reproducing that faint, distinctive constellation of freckles on her own bicep, patiently dotting them over Kate’s arm in tattoo ink. They’d gone into the scene with every blemish and mark scrupulously matched.

That’s not what Moriarty means, though. And he’s right.

“Can you get in ahead of the police?” she asks.

“Oh, Irene. I can get in _with_ the police.”

“I need you to get her phone and her passport, before anyone else can see them. I’ll take care of the rest.”

“You can fudge the forensic evidence? Congratulations again, I’m impressed.”

“You’re not the only one with contacts,” Irene says, and cuts off the call.

That’s when it hits her. _Contacts._

Dammit, she needs her Vertu.

_Think._ Who can she call; who can she bluff, without the smoking gun? None of her first-stringers, that’s for sure. She’ll have to fall back on the irregulars.

The driver has pulled off the road, as requested, and is idling in a car park. “Wait here,” Irene instructs, and gets out. The cold air bites through her furred hood and stings her eyes as she walks about twenty feet away.

First, she texts Alicia. _Flight cancelled. Red C minus,_ a.k.a. _Emergency, Chelsea off-limits, safe haven needed ASAP_.

Next she picks a little-used number out of her phone menu. “Don’t say my name,” she says as it connects.

“Oh, thank fuck,” comes the shaky reply, after a pause in which she can hear the sounds of a police scanner and answering sirens. He must be at Eaton Square already.

“Quite so. Listen to me, and answer yes or no only. I’ve had a lucky escape, but it’s not going to stay that way unless you identify that body as mine. If there isn’t enough DNA evidence there, go to the top floor of number 60, Tite Street. The door’s on the latch, and you’ll find what looks like a crime scene. Use the blood on the walls; it’s fairly fresh.”

“You _planned_ this?” Dear god, this man has no discretion whatever; should never have taken up with him, never mind his access. Damn her own soft spot for detective stories, and detectives.

“Of course not. All you need to know is that the American secret service is gunning for me, literally, and if they get me – well, it’s not just my own secrets that might come out.” Unlikely, but he doesn’t need to know that, or who’s guarding those secrets now.

“I know who the victim is,” she adds, more gently. “It was a mistake, her going there; I’d never have allowed it if I’d known. I’ll get word to her family. Can I rely on you for the rest?”

There’s a muffled pause, and then the background noise fades a bit. “Of course, Mistress,” he says, very softly.

“I knew it,” she says, lowering her voice into its most honeyed contralto. “I’ve always trusted you, Andy. Thank you, I won’t forget this.”

 

 

She has the driver go to the transport café. “Get yourself a cuppa,” she says, and he shambles gratefully inside while she goes to the phone box.

Her text pings with a number three chilly minutes later. She pulls out a pound coin and dials.

Alicia answers on the second ring. “Thirty-eight Carlisle Street, Soho,” she says, and rings off. Irene exhales, her breath a bright mist under the halogens.

She gets back into the town car, answering automatically when the driver reappears, and blankly watches the lights flit by as they take the M23 slip road, heading back to London.

It’s not until she’s inside the safe house that the icy knot in her stomach – gathering and coiling ever since Kate walked out – erupts, fragments of rage slicing through her like shrapnel.

_No one touches anything of hers, no one — what possessed her to go back there, how could she be so stupid — she could have come back, Irene would have looked after her — they have to pay for this, pay and pay —_

She’ll finish this. She’ll outwit and crush the lot of them. She’ll play Sherlock to the very end of the line and then she will _reduce_ him. As for Big Brother, so negligently spying on them and failing to step in when it mattered — she will make him regret the day he set his brother on her trail.

When Alicia arrives two hours later, Irene sits stone-faced at the kitchen table, a cooling, untouched cup of tea in front of her. Every book and piece of bedding in the flat has been swept off its shelf and flung to the floor.

Alicia surveys the wreckage. “At least you stuck to the unbreakables; ta for that.” She crosses to the sink and refills the kettle. They wait in silence as the tea steeps, and then Alicia passes a fresh cup to Irene. Seating herself, she pulls a flask out of her handbag, and adds a tot to each cup. “Merry fucking Christmas,” she says. “Don’t suppose you want to tell me what this is all about? Oh, and by the way. I’ve had a message from Kent.”

 

 

_“Do the wives know, when they come here?” Irene blurts out one morning. At twelve, her thirst for data sometimes outstrips her discretion._

_Annabel Coombe had shown up at seven, barely eight hours after Aggie had sent Frank on his way, and Irene had tensed for battle. But no, it was merely a garden-shed transaction, something about a niece’s wedding, and the light chatter of their voices outside had carried to Irene’s bedroom as she dressed — matter-of-fact, business as usual._

_One corner of Aggie’s mouth curls up. “If they do, they’ve got the good sense not to flap their mouths about it.  I’ll thank you to do the same.” She pours them both tea, unruffled._

_“It’s just,” Irene says. “I’d think it would bother them.” Or bother you, she carefully doesn’t say._

_Aggie hears it anyway. “I’m hardly going to ignore half the market, now am I?” She opens the paper, which Annabel had obligingly brought up the drive. “If they’ve got any sense at all, they’ll know I’m doing them a favour. Doesn’t last anyway, does it? They all go home eventually. Prefer it that way, myself.”_

 

 

The Woman is, more often than not, the Other Woman. Suits Irene fine; hard limits aside, boundaries are there for the crossing. What’s life without mischief?

Kerfuffles with domestic partners come with the territory and supply their own brand of entertainment. Said partners tend either to wheedle or to whinge and storm about spousal rights;bluffing on a busted flush, as Aggie would say, while Irene never holds less than a full house. Seducing them now and then simply makes for a bigger pot when she wins. And she always wins.

John Watson, however, has the worst poker face on the planet, and judging by his blog (whiffs of cockblocking, sexual frustration and het panic), hasn’t a clue about his own conjugal status, let alone how to play it to advantage.

(Honestly, _men_. Irene’s job is made so much easier by their sheer simple-mindedness when it comes to love and sex.)

This should be easy enough, but Irene still needs some luck and finesse; it’s her turn to bluff, after all. Which is why she leads deceptively, with the Mycroft-style kidnapping (Alicia playing trump, as she does so well).

She paces the catwalks of Battersea Power Station and reviews the tricks to follow.

_Dear Doctor Watson, I’m entreating you, as Sherlock’s spouse (yes, you are, even if you aren’t joined anywhere in particular below the hip), to convince him it’s in his best interest to return my cameraphone._

_Yes, I have been toying with your man. Yes, I do rather fancy him in my way, much as you do, and you might want to think about what that means.  But the game’s got a little rough, in case you hadn’t noticed, and while I’m quite used to that myself, I can’t be on my merry way without my protection. So be a good chap and persuade him to give it up._

...and well, well. She’d pegged him as a territorial little terrier, capable of snapping and growling but with much worse bark than bite. But he’s a different, tougher breed of dom altogether (yes, that _is_ jealousy of a sort). Sherlock is luckier than he knows.

Or perhaps he does know, by the unexpected way he appears in the wings.

(Not 100% unexpected, if you’re Irene Adler. Attached at the hip, indeed.)

His appearance is a gift, honestly. She’d not been sure the bluff would get her phone back, but the next best thing, surely, is to give them both a touch of the whip. A little cruelty, a little concern — nothing better for keeping Sherlock off-balance, and his attention where she wants it.

She’s happy to call this round a draw, as long as there’s a foretaste of the payback to come. _(Kate.)  
_

Alicia reappears from shepherding Watson back to the car, eyes on her BlackBerry. Irene looks at her thoughtfully. The cape, heels and demure skirt really make her look the part, but then she always does; it’s a marvel, the career she’s made of dressing and sounding like everyone’s sexy subordinate. Irene respects her whip hand, even if she’s never seen it in action. “What did you think of him?” she asks, because she’s genuinely curious. Nobody understands switch dynamics like Alicia.

“That one? He’s so true to type it’s perfect. Consummate mid-ranks officer in public. Topping the hell out of his superior in private. Well, you saw for yourself.”

Irene smiles. “The first time they showed up on my doorstep, Sherlock had the marks of a consensual beating. At the time I thought it terribly cheeky of them. Had to add a few whip-marks and a kiss of my own. Now – well. Could be useful, having something to play against.”

“Nice touch, holding him back there in the end. He’ll almost think you care.”

“I thought so.” Irene pauses. “Alicia, you’re holding that BlackBerry like a firework about to go off. What are you not telling me?”

“She’s been transferred to intensive care,” Alicia says gently. “I think you need to go down to Kent now, if you’re going at all. And honestly? It’s probably better than any safe house I could arrange for you right now.”

  
  
Big Ben is tolling the end of 2011 as Irene hurries down Fleet Street, away from her final rendezvous, toward the last Canterbury train from St. Pancras. In her pocket are Kate’s phone and passport; in her ear a few choice words from Moriarty. She almost misses the chime of her text alert.

_Happy New Year. SH_

Complicity at last. Irene smiles.

Shuffle the deck and deal the next hand: the game is still on.

  
  



	5. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “They’re children about loyalties. They’ll pick a shag over their mates once or twice, but when the chips are down, it’s all about the team. That’s why they’re nutters about sport and their buddies in arms and the lads down the pub, and you muck with that at your peril, my girl. And god help you if they catch you consorting with the enemy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to seiji for her patience in talking me through the pivotal scene in this chapter, and helping me clarify my own headcanon for Irene's sexuality.
> 
> A repeat disclaimer: consent remains a dubious concept for Ms. Adler; in no way do I see her as practicing safe, sane and consensual BDSM or responsible pro ethics. On at least two out of those three counts, she's not the only repeat offender in the BBC 'verse.

**CHAPTER FOUR**

**In which Irene plays, is outplayed, loses the pot but takes the last trick.**

 

Intensive care is all violet shadows and green readouts at this hour, the faint beep of bedside monitors muffled by the partition curtains. A few scrub-clad staffers flit from station to station, but no one takes note of Irene, slipping quietly into one corner recess.

She stretches a gloved hand toward the crumpled nest of white hair and papery skin, unnaturally smooth, the face turned into the pillow so that profile and jawline stand out in sharp relief. She knows them well; she sees them in the mirror every day. She gently lifts one wisp of white, tucks it behind one delicate ear.

“Hello, Aggie,” she whispers.

The sight of her, as always, flays something open that Irene keeps tightly sewn up inside her armour. Rather than look, she pulls a chair to the bedside, seats herself, and leans to rest her forehead on Aggie’s sunken chest.

“Aggie,” she says quietly. “Aggie, I’ve lost my best girl.” Beep. Beep. Beep. Under her cheek, a few droplets collect, then a few more, a trickle staining the sheet and spreading darkly in the dim light.

She doesn’t say the next part ( _don’t want to lose you too_ ), instead willing Aggie to read her thoughts as she used to long ago — opening those cold grey eyes and scanning her for tells that no one else can see.

But Aggie hasn’t spoken for over a decade, and she isn’t going to begin now. Irene wouldn’t care for the answer, anyway.

 

 

Irene had gone down to Canterbury thinking that it would be over within a week. It takes six: an exercise, sometimes hour by hour, in shifting cover, all while fending off the bureaucracy first of impending and then accomplished death.

There’s no DNR paperwork on file, which means she can’t do anything but wait. In some ways that makes things easier; at least she’s spared the agonising fight over pulling the plug that she would otherwise have had with Father Devlin (eighty-odd, still as cantankerous as ever, with false teeth and an ever deeper cigarettes-and-whisky voice).

Not that they don’t wage total war as it is. Despite Irene’s efforts to stay under the radar, Father Devlin’s visits are too constant and too erratically timed for them to miss one another completely. Which leads to a small bedside explosion, and a larger one once Irene pulls him out of intensive care and into the corridor.

“You’re not as clever as you think,” he hisses at her. “Google and Twitter and I don’t know what else, anyone could have found out what you’ve been up to, and what if they told Agathe? As if you hadn’t broken her heart enough already.”

“Fat lot you know about it,” she retorts. “Aggie never needed me to protect her. Aggie wouldn’t have cared, and she’d have told you where to get off if you tried to make trouble.”

“How dare you speak to your grandmother’s priest like that —”

Irene casts her eyes heavenward, and clamping a steely grip on his arm, tows him down the corridor to the hospital chapel. Inside, she explains a few facts of life to him, including everything she knows about his connection with Aggie’s business and her own _friendship_ with one of his immediate superiors in the church hierarchy. He comes to heel, after some further parley, and agrees to keep quiet about her presence here: silence traded for silence.

Unexpected moral support appears at the end of the first week, in the form of a plump sixty-something matron with dyed red hair, who materializes inside the partition curtain as Irene is gently teasing tangles out of Aggie’s pillow-snarled hair. She looks up into shocked and protuberant eyes, a washed-out blue.

“Good lord. Is that Renie?” the apparition blurts. “Gave me a turn. You look so much like her.” And as Irene stares and tries to place her, she adds, “Annabel Coombe. Don’t expect you’d remember me. Sweetshop in the village, back when you were tiny.”

“Of course I remember,” Irene answers slowly. What the hell is she doing here? Did Father Devlin rat her out after all? “I certainly didn’t expect to see you here, though.”

“Oh, I’ve never lost sight of Aggie, you know. Been something of a habit, especially since Frank went.” Annabel smiles, revealing gold-edged teeth. “You know, play cards, have a good natter every week or so. Christ, I’m glad to see you. Father Devlin’s been trying to contact Ellie, but no luck so far. It’s good that Aggie’s got one of her own around.”

Here, at any rate, is an apparently non-hostile source of current information, and after a moment’s thought, Irene invites her for a cup of tea –“not the canteen if you don’t mind, dreadful muck they serve; there’s a proper caff down the road a bit,” Annabel suggests. Once they sort themselves out with mugs and a plate of biscuits at a teetery table, it’s simple.

“— Frank, well, the booze and ciggies and women finally caught up with him, let’s see, back in ’98, and I retired not long after that, needed to take it easier myself. So I’d look in on Aggie when I could. She’d get bored with telly and the first lot of care nurses were mostly useless. I did hear that you were the one to sort her private care, that right?”

“Mr. Binns did the hiring,” Irene says, referring to the down-at-heels solicitor they'd nicknamed “Dustbins,” and whom Irene had kept on as a local convenience since Aggie's...illness. “But yes, I helped with that. Did you say you used to chat with her? I thought she couldn’t speak at all.”

“Oh, that was me nattering, but Aggie’d grunt and nod along, scrawl notes while she could still write.  And maybe she couldn’t shuffle the deck properly anymore, but she’d still beat me at cards, mostly, right up to when she had her second stroke. Even after she went to Hawkwood, she’d fiddle with the deck all day.” Annabel’s smile is fond. “Half her brain gone and the other half scrambled, Aggie was still a smart one. Smartest person hereabouts, for sure.”

Irene phrases her next question with care. “You said that Father Devlin was trying to find my mother. Do you know when he last had any contact with her?”

“Oh, must have been a good four, five years ago. You know, when she came to visit.”

Irene hadn’t known, but her own visits have been rare enough and clandestine enough that she would miss any such gossip. Aggie had certainly given no sign, but then, Irene wouldn’t have expected one.

“Aggie never did have much use for Ellie, poor lass. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, begging your pardon, and to tell the truth I don’t think Aggie liked the way she’d come over all churchy and preachy. She sent her packing pretty fast. I know Ellie went to that Binns fellow, trying to get power of attorney I think, or at least find out your address. “

“She must not have had any luck with either,” Irene said. “I hold power of attorney and I certainly didn’t hear from her.”

“Always thought it was funny, how Ellie never seemed to have any brains when you turned out as bright as Aggie.  Oh, yes, she was right proud of you before the stroke, and even after, you could tell. Always said you’d make something of yourself.” Annabel pauses for a gulp of tea, then adds with casual curiosity, “So what did you say you did now?”

“I didn’t,” Irene replies coolly. “Public relations consultant. Very elite clientele.”

“Travel a lot then?”

“Oh, yes.”

“See, Aggie’d like that. Didn’t much like to stir from Kent herself, but she’d have been right pleased that you managed it. Work with any film stars, do you?”

The rest is mostly trivialities and easily-fended questions, but as they stand up Annabel says, ”Got a bed going spare, if you need it.”

“Oh, thank you, very kind, I’m sorted for now –“

“Yeah, and once Aggie goes you’ll have a deal to do at the cottage. No sense coming all the way from Canterbury every day, and you know there’s no lodging in the village. Don’t worry, I know you don’t want a lot of fuss. I can keep my trap shut. There if you need it, is all.” And Annabel tugs on her woolly hat and nods, once, on her way out the teashop door.

 

 

Irene moves every two or three days, a different B&B, a different guest-house, avoiding the grander and better-trafficked tourist hotels in favor of the low-profile ones that accept cash and ask no questions. She changes her clothes to fit each lodging, changes her shoes and her gait for the CCTV cameras; she roams Canterbury between hospital visits, stopping by the Cathedral, tailing the odd stranger, reading tells on public buses. It calms her restlessness. She’s long fallen out of the habit of anonymity, and it chafes, now and again, to play the mousy girl bundled up against the weather with nowhere to go.

Her eyes snag, all too often, on tall figures with dark hair and long coats, male and female alike. She misses being _seen_ , for all that she spends every day in search of cover, and there’s balm in the fantasy that Sherlock might come looking for her in person. It becomes her worry bead against boredom and impatience, against that undertow, barely acknowledged, that pulls at _Kate, Aggie, no_.

The absence of the Vertu eats at her as well. It’s her talisman and trump card, but also the carapace built up by her labors, the glossy shield of her confidence. Without it, she feels herself a moulted and pitiful creature, her new losses naked tells, exposed at the very core of her.

She doesn’t know how much time she has, how long her tracks can stay covered. Aggie’s death will force her out of the shadows, enough at least for any who may be searching. And while she plans on off-loading as much of the responsibility as she can (on Alicia, on Annabel, who has volunteered to help), Annabel was right: she can’t put off the cottage for much longer.

 

 

It’s dusty and stale-smelling; no one has been in to clean for ages, perhaps not since Aggie went to assisted care at Hawkwood. Black mark, Dustbins. The curtains smell faintly of mould. Irene picks her way upstairs fastidiously; whatever is worth finding will be up here, in the private domain they once shared.

She goes first to the bookcase on the landing and runs her eye over the titles. Aggie had been something of a reader at one time, and liked her hardbound copies, picked up for pennies at parish sales. Irene checks _The Wealth of Nations,_ _Don Quixote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s_ without result; the George Bernard Shaw volume has been gouged in the middle to create a cache but yields nothing – ah, of course, Irene had emptied it herself, long ago. She trails a gloved finger along the dusty moulding, dredging up what she can remember from Sister Aloysius’ lit classes. She goes past the Poe anthology once before it registers. Carefully, she slides out the heavy volume – a positive bookstop, _obvious_ , of course. There in plain sight.

The book ‘s inner pages have been cut out neatly this time, creating a six-inch-square cavity holding a wad of banknotes and an ancient, leather-bound memorandum book. Irene opens it cautiously: cryptic jottings, columns of figures and some clippings, Aggie’s equivalent of the Vertu, no doubt.  As she flips through it, a series of crossed-out addresses and phone numbers for “Ellie” catches her eye. Something to pass along to Dustbins. Irene has no intention of calling in person.

Aggie’s bedroom has a stripped and desolate air, but her brocade jewellery box still sits on the dresser and, astonishingly, her pearls are still in the top compartment. Irene breathes out her relief; Dustbins’ char may have been negligent but at least she was no thief.  She slips them in her own bag, and on a whim, presses the lever that opens the secret drawer. Aggie had rather laughed at the idea of it and never kept anything there (and Irene had checked, the night she left the house), but it’s not empty anymore.

A man’s watch and ring. Irene pulls them out and stares, takes them over to the window. Some faint monogram on the underside of each. She’s seen them before, she knows she has, but not here, never here. A cheap drawer in painted white wood, a scratched mirror above; the smell of chips ( _fries_ ), the chemical tang of orange-and-white swirly ice cream. New Jersey.

Irene shakes her head as if to dispel the images ( _tell_ ). She’ll put Dustbins and Alicia on it. She has enough on her plate without adding mysteries for the moment.

She goes last to the cupboard, zipping open the hanging bags and peeling off her gloves to check the state of the dresses. She'd had a black brocade in Eaton Square that would have suited Aggie perfectly; pity. She settles, instead, for a grey satin dress with a broad collar, something like a Givenchy knockoff from the early sixties, good condition. Black-and-silver heels, sheer grey stockings. Never let it be said that she isn’t sending Aggie off in style. She stows everything in one of the garment bags, slings it over her arm, and heads downstairs at the sound of Annabel’s horn.

 

 

At the beginning of the seventh week, her reprieve runs out.

She’s upstairs sorting Aggie’s clothes, keeping one eye on the bottom of the drive, both out of habit and her growing sense of exposure, and so sees the Land Rover as soon as it rounds the corner – do these Americans have no notion of stealth at all? — She can make out at least three of them; once again, too many for her to take and protect Annabel at the same time.

She scoops up her duffel — she’s had it to hand every day for exactly this kind of emergency exit — and smoothly turns to her companion, putting a hand on her shoulder. Annabel looks up in surprise.

“I’m sorry about this, I really am,” she says. “But trust me, it will spare you some rough handling,” and she jabs the syringe efficiently into Annabel’s bicep, catching her under the arms as she sags.

Recovery position on the carpet, and then Irene is flying full throttle down the stairs, out the back door and into the woods.

They don’t know the terrain, she thinks, or she’d have a reception back here as well. Nonetheless, she avoids the footpath, which joins up with a driveable track after twenty yards. Instead, she sticks to the elm trees, which grow thickly enough to screen her a bit, and heads northeast for the A28.

One hitched ride, one bus, and one local train later, Irene joins the London express at Ashford. She spends the entire trip slouched in a window seat, face sullen under a watch cap, curves hidden beneath a ratty green jumper she’d filched from Aggie’s wardrobe. Clothes, body language, lack of makeup: she can readily pass for ten years younger.

It’s a very, very slight head start, she knows. All she can hope is that she’ll reach her destination ahead of the pack. Time to get her head back in the game. Once she goes this final round with Sherlock, she will hold every trump card in the deck.

 

 

(Oh, she has played this hand well; he’s desperate to impress. Even Doctor Watson takes note.

The speed of it, though: breathtaking. And yes, arousing.

Begging for mercy twice won’t _begin_ to cover it.)

 

 

 

Sherlock’s retreated to his chair, violin in hand and eyes absently fixed on the fireplace, when John clatters back downstairs. He’s changed his checked shirt for a striped one and ditched the frumpy green anorak for a finer black jacket with leather patches; his shoes are polished and the military alertness is back in his posture. He pauses by the sitting-room door, and Irene uncoils from her chair and crosses the room to him.

“Out on a date, Dr. Watson?”

“Just heading down to the pub for a pint,” he answers, eyes cutting to where Sherlock sits with head bowed over the violin.

“On the pull, then, by the looks of you,” and at that, he rolls his eyes her way, _one mind-reader’s enough, don’t you start_. “Without your wingman?”

John emits a small, chopped-off snort. “As if. Don’t get me started on the number of dates he’s ruined.”

“But you’re still _his_ wingman, aren’t you? Mates’ code and all that, or you’d hardly leave me here with him alone.” Irene smiles.

There’s a quick flash of something like discomfort at that, and then John grins, all cheek and sly amusement. “At the moment, you could strip off and climb on his lap again and I doubt he’d even notice. He gets like that. So focused he stops observing. Goes right on talking to me when I’ve left the house, even.”

Irene briefly considers that the best way of getting Sherlock’s attention might be to strip off and straddle John Watson here and now. But the fallout wouldn’t exactly advance her interests, more’s the pity. Dr. Watson is patently _wasted_ on easy pub sex (though who’s she to judge? “Whatever makes the marriage work” is _entirely_ her area).

“Is that so? Well. You should take advantage of the down time, I agree,” she says, all mock-gravity, and John’s smile broadens briefly before fading.

“Watch yourself,” he says. “I’m not sure you understand what you’re dealing with. Although you must know that there will be consequences if you mess him about. I won’t have it, and neither will –“ he breaks off.

“The chilly older brother? I’m hardly afraid that Sherlock will run crying to him, and you won’t either.”

“No, I won’t,” John says, and he’s all top now, for all that he’s temporarily passing her the leash. “I don’t need to, now do I?”

*******************

  
_“Word of advice,” Aggie says, dealing cards stained with beer and tobacco, and pausing for a puff between wrist-flicks. She’s taken up smoking again despite Dr. Meecham’s threats; Irene steals as many fags as she dares for backstage barter at school rehearsals, on the grounds that Aggie’s heart won’t stand the strain for long._

_“They’re children about loyalties. They’ll pick a shag over their mates once or twice, but when the chips are down, it’s all about the team. That’s why they’re nutters about sport and their buddies in arms and the lads down the pub, and you muck with that at your peril, my girl.  And god help you if they catch you consorting with the enemy.”_

_“Men don’t have enemies, mostly. Not real ones,” Irene says boldly. Lately, she’s been trying to match Aggie’s worldly, world-weary tone; plainly, it’s a useful voice to cultivate. “They just pretend they do so they feel important.”_

_“Doesn’t matter. Playground rivals, the away team, or the bloke who’s genuinely doing a dirty on them. Don’t let them see you with the competition unless you’ve well and truly got the goods on them yourself.”_

*********************

Irene Adler knows what she likes. But in every good scene, every worthwhile long game, the secret of her success lies in what she _lives for_ :

— moments like this one, here, before the fire, clad in nothing but her own skin wrapped in one of Sherlock’s; in _his_ territory but _her_ element. This addictive moment of truth: the sheer joy of mischief, the pure pulse of her own power, dissolving everything -- seeming into being, mask into self-portrait. She’s not faking a thing. Every nerve fires with arousal, every brain cell floods with dopamine; her skin all but glows, as if a live current snakes beneath it, ready to spark.

Irene can get off like this, with nary a touch from the body before her, with barely a touch of her own.

Of course the body in question counts for something. Potential leverage — well and good, but what’s a prize without beauty, challenge and risk? Playing it safe is for lesser women. She prefers a good spike of adrenaline in her drugs of preference.

She’s been upping the dosage lately, it must be said.

And very, very lately, she’s spotted a fellow addict for that little cocktail of thrills.  What Sherlock Holmes Likes -- at least some of it --is as familiar to her as the throb of her own blood.

So when she kneels before Sherlock and takes his hand, sees the softening and uncertainty in his face, the thrill of approaching victory triggers the high as never before. _We are the same in this, you and I, drunk on ourselves, and only brain can trump brain_ and his hand rotates under hers, fingers brushing tentatively over her wrist.

Have him here, yes, smash every boundary, _reduce_ , send bodies and brains into an endless orgasmic loop, because this, _this_ is payback, and the triumph she’s waited for all her life —

— except, of course, that it isn’t.

The interruption comes just in time, really.

She watches the rear lights of the car flare and wink away, and then turns from the window and makes her way to the bathroom.

_That was the set-up hand, not the grand slam_ , she reminds herself, although it’s Aggie’s voice she hears. _Time to suit up for the final trick_.

She stares a moment into the mirror. Hair loose, no makeup; she’d gambled on a strain of sweet vulnerability to soften the erotic aggression. It had worked, too, perhaps far better than it would have on a less brilliant but more experienced man. He’ll know, of course, the instant she turns up in her usual camouflage (the one-armed sequined frock? No, the silk cellophane. An extra spice of cruelty, this time; there’s Mycroft to think of, as well).

All the same, her hand almost trembles as she pins up her hair and brushes on eyeshadow, and there’s an aftertaste in her mouth that she refuses to call regret.

  
  
  
_Don’t tell him about me until you’ve won. Let it be your coup de grâce._

As if I would. My show, you said.

_And we mustn’t do anything to diminish your cleverness, must we? All the same, share the credit when the chips are down._

He’ll hate that.

_Rather the point._

  
****************

In the arctic wake of Sherlock’s exit from the library, Irene’s very voice seems to freeze in her throat. “What will you do to me?” she says, forcing the words past numb lips.

Mycroft turns her phone over, once. Aching to strip its secrets, no doubt, but all he does is push it, with precision, a few inches away on the table. Ironclad, frightening control. “Your real mistake was bringing Moriarty into it,” he says.  “That’s what let Sherlock put it all together.”

“It was just another flick of the whip,” Irene said. “Well. Maybe the cruelest one. He didn’t know he had competition for my secrets. But I don’t see why that should have made him….” She hesitates. No point exposing more than she needs to.

“Really, Miss Adler. I took you for a more observant woman than that. Sherlock was prepared to take his chastisement meekly when he thought you’d simply outplayed him. He probably thought he deserved it. But hearing that you have been, in effect, Moriarty’s pawn —“

“I am _nobody’s_ pawn, thank you very much —“

“— he had a very strong reason to rethink your actions and motives. Simple, after that, to see the incongruity in your conduct for what it was. — Of course you’ve been Moriarty’s pawn; what other use would you be to him? You clearly have no idea what you’ve meddled with.”

“Jim likes games. It’s what we have in common,” Irene says. “And he _admires_ Sherlock. He might thwart him but I don’t think he’d seriously harm him; he enjoys toying with him too much.”

“But Sherlock won’t play any more. He’d burn and salt the earth first, with as much mercy as he has just shown you, Miss Adler. And Moriarty’s malice is far from harmless.”

“Dear me. I shall have to remember that, if I ever see daylight again,” Irene says. She’s recovering, although Mycroft can spot the effort it takes, damn him. “I asked you a question.”

Mycroft settles back, considering. He tents his fingers before his lips in a jarringly familiar posture. “You’ve done a lot of damage with your game, you know. I could lock you up and lose the key, but that would be a rather wasteful use of our nation’s resources, not to mention your capacities. On the other hand, you are quite right about your probable life expectancy without some form of protection. I could, perhaps, be persuaded to do something about the latter.”

“In exchange for what?” She leans negligently against the table, the most seductive posture she can manage from this angle; pro forma, really, as she hasn’t any illusions at this point. “Don’t tell me you’re after personal services at this late date.”

“Dear me, no. I had something much simpler in mind. I find that, in light of recent events, I would like to convey a message to the terror cell responsible for this evening’s debacle. I propose to make you the messenger.”

“And then what?” Irene asks, carefully.

“If you are successful,” Mycroft says blandly, _pretty big if there,_ “I shall have a word with our American brethren about finding you a spot in witness protection. They have much better facilities for that sort of thing than we do, and it’s a large country, plenty of places to lose oneself. Plenty of opportunities as well, no doubt.”

"And if I’m not?”

“Then I expect your worries will be over, one way or another.”

Christ.

“I’m not trained,” Irene says, meticulously keeping every shred of plea out of her voice. “I’ll need money and an interpreter, and at least some sort of standing. I can’t just walk into some hideout in Islamabad or Kabul and expect them to accept my word for it.”

“Oh, quite,” says Mycroft. “Which is why your message will be in the original code we broke. What they do with you afterwards is a little hard to predict, but I daresay that you can handle it. In fact, you should be far less at risk than one of our own would be.”

“But much more expendable. Jesus, Moriarty was right about you.”

“You would be well advised not to mention his name again,” Mycroft says, still in the same tranquil tone. “I shall provide a security detail and safe house for you tonight. If you wish any personal items fetched from the Belgravia house, that can also be arranged, and your luggage forwarded to you. You should assume that, one way or another, you will not be returning to England.” He pauses. “Whatever happens, that is for the best. For you, and for Sherlock also.”

_When all else fails, let ’em think they’ve won. Let ‘em think you’re a slave to your heart; even the cleverest of men will fall for that. Let ‘em go on underestimating you, because that’s when they’ll let their guard down, show you their soft spots. Watch for that, Renie, and be ready to strike._

Cleverness is Sherlock’s weakness.

Sherlock, one way and another, is Mycroft’s.

Let them both think he is hers as well if that gets her out of here with a whole skin.  

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _There's no DNR paperwork on file_. DNR = Do Not Resuscitate. In the UK as in the US, patients have the right to request that life-extending measures be withheld in the event of a near-fatal attack (e.g. coronary, stroke, etc.) — specifically, that no intubation be given for feeding or CPR for re-starting the heart. In the absence of an Advance Directive or Living Will (stating the patient's wishes in the event that s/he cannot make decisions, and designating someone who can), Irene would face a number of legal and practical hurdles in "pulling the plug," regardless of whether or not Father Devlin chose to interfere.


End file.
